"Gilbert! Come on!" Elizaveta yelled as she banged on the front door to his house. The sun was warm and already high in the sky. Elizaveta put her ear to the door and listened as Gilbert stumbled down the stairs and seemed to trip on the way to the door. She stood up straight as she stifled a laugh and Gilbert threw open the front door. He had on simple black pants and a white dress shirt. Elizaveta thought that he was a little overdressed for a picnic, but she wasn't about to complain. It was nice to see Gilbert clean up for once.
"I'm here!" he yelled, breathing heavily. It was clear that he had run from upstairs, probably just throwing on his pants as he ran down the stairs. He was never good at keeping on time, or getting himself out of bed for that matter. "You look nice." He said. Elizaveta turned a light red and tucked a lose strand of hair behind her ear. "It's nice to see you dressed like a lady for a change." Gilbert chuckled and smiled at her. Though she objected, Elizaveta had agreed (after much begging from Gilbert) to wear something nice. Bella lent her a pale yellow sundress and match hat since Elizaveta didn't own any dresses besides her green cleaning dress.
"Thank you. You don't look too bad yourself." She said, winking. "You did remember to back a picnic basket, right?" Elizaveta noticed that Gilbert's hands were empty as he glanced at the floor. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Come on." She said. "I'm helping you." Grabbing Gilbert's arm, she dragged him into the kitchen where an empty basket lay open on the dark table. The kitchen was light and smelled like it had been used recently, the scent of bratwursts still lingering in the air. She walked over to the fridge and threw the door open. "What do you want to bring?" she asked as the look over her shoulder at Gilbert. He walked up behind her and peered over her shoulder.
"Uhm…that leftover cake looks good." He said as he pulled out cake. He set it on the counter as Elizaveta shook her head.
"You do know that you need more in a lunch than just cake, right?" she reached into the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread, turkey, ham, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and butter. She kicked the door closed with her foot and brought everything over to Gilbert. "I'm going to assume that you know how to make a sandwich?"
"Of course I know how to make a sandwich!" he replied, laughing.
"Good." Elizaveta replied. She took the glass cover off of the butter dish and opened the loaf of bread, setting four slices down and passing two of them over to Gilbert. She buttered each of her own slices before sliding the dish across the table to Gilbert, handing him the knife. He grabbed it and cut off a slab of butter, spreading it on the bread and making a mess all over the table. "Gilbert! You took far too much!" Elizaveta sighed and snatched back the knife. She placed it in the sink and tossed him a roll of paper towels. "Clean up the butter." Gilbert just shrugged as he began to wipe the grease off of the table.
"I was just doing it the awesome way, but if you want to do it your own way then fine." Elizaveta just sighed and returned to making her sandwich. Turkey, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions. Gilbert finished cleaning up after himself and tossed the paper towels into the open trash can, missing the shot, but leaving the towel on the floor to clean up later. He grabbed a handful of turkey and threw it onto the slice of bread without butter and reached for the block of cheese, but Elizaveta stopped him before he could grab it.
"I'm going to help you with that. Don't want you to cut your finger off."
"Oh come on, Lizzie. I'm not going to cut off my finger. I'm too awesome for that!"
"Sure you are, sweetie. Now come here and let mommy show you how to cut cheese." Gilbert mumbled something and walked over to where she was standing. She put the knife in his hand and moved behind him, taking his arm and placing it on top of the block.
"Is this necessary, Lizzie? I feel like a little kid again."
"Of course it is." She replied. "Now, you do it like this." She held the hand that he had on the knife's handle, and placed her other hand on the opposite end, just near the tip of the blade, pushing down on it so that it slid through the cheese nice and smoothly, making a clean, even slice. She tossed it towards his slices of bread on the other end of the table. Gilbert went over and put it on the dry slice of bread. "You want some help with anything else?"
"No, I can do it." He stuck out his tongue and grabbed a tomato. "See?" he slid the knife through it with ease, but the resulting slice was uneven and juice got all over the table, but Gilbert, being Gilbert, pretended not to notice and proudly slapped the tomato on top of the cheese. Elizaveta resisted the urge to correct him and just make the sandwich herself. If wanted to do it, then he could do it, even if the result was demented and messy. Gilbert picked up the head of lettuce and ripped off far too much. "I ment to do that." He said, putting some on his sandwich and tossing the rest into Gilbrid's cage. The small yellow chick flapped down to the bottom of the cage where the leafy vegetable lay and began to peck at it, chirping happily.
"Is he supposed to be eating lettuce?" Elizaveta asked. Gilbert didn't even glace up from what he was doing.
"I don't know. I don't think it'll do anything. West gives him bratwurst sometimes, so lettuce should be fine." Elizaveta didn't really know much about birds, but she was pretty sure that you weren't supposed to feed little birds meat or lettuce. Shaking her head, she packed up her sandwich and the cake that had been sitting on the counter. Gilbert smacked the top slice of bread onto the top of his sandwich and held it in front of her face, not caring about the juice dripping onto the floor. "Ha!" he yelled. "I made a sandwich! Told you I could!" he quickly wrapped his sandwich in plastic and threw it carelessly into the basket.
"Yup. That's a sandwich." She glanced into the basket and set some napkins inside. "If your sandwich gets squished, I'm not sharing mine."